Windows 2000 - Support Lifecycle

Support Lifecycle

Windows 2000 was superseded by newer Microsoft operating systems: Windows 2000 Server products by Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000 Professional by Windows XP Professional.

The Windows 2000 family of operating systems moved from mainstream support to the extended support phase on June 30, 2005. Microsoft says that this marks the progression of Windows 2000 through the Windows lifecycle policy. Under mainstream support, Microsoft freely provides design changes if any, service packs and non-security related updates in addition to security updates, whereas in extended support, service packs are not provided and non-security updates require contacting the support personnel by e-mail or phone. Under the extended support phase, Microsoft continued to provide critical security updates every month for all components of Windows 2000 (including Internet Explorer 5.0 SP4) and paid per-incident support for technical issues. Because of Windows 2000's age, updated versions of components such as Windows Media Player 11 and Internet Explorer 7 have not been released for it. In the case of Internet Explorer, Microsoft said in 2005 that, "some of the security work in IE 7 relies on operating system functionality in XP SP2 that is non-trivial to port back to Windows 2000."

While users of Windows 2000 Professional and Server are eligible to receive the upgrade license for Windows Vista Business or Windows Server 2008, neither of these operating systems can directly perform an upgrade installation from Windows 2000; a clean installation must be performed instead or a two-step upgrade through XP/2003. Microsoft has dropped the upgrade path from Windows 2000 (and earlier) to Windows 7. Users of Windows 2000 must buy a full Windows 7 license.

Although Windows 2000 is the last NT-based version of Microsoft Windows which does not include product activation, Microsoft has introduced Windows Genuine Advantage for certain downloads and non-critical updates from the Download Center for Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 reached the end of its lifecycle on July 13, 2010. It will not receive new security updates and new security-related hotfixes after this date. In Japan, over 130,000 servers and 500,000 PCs in local governments are affected; many local governments said that they will not update as they do not have funds to cover a replacement.

As of 2011 Windows Update still supports the Windows 2000 updates available on Patch Tuesday in July 2010, e.g., if older optional Windows 2000 features are enabled later. Microsoft Office products under Windows 2000 have their own product lifecycles. While Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP still receives security patches this is not the case for IE6 under Windows 2000. The Malicious Software Removal Tool mrt.exe installed monthly by Windows Update for XP and later versions can be still downloaded manually for Windows 2000.

As of fall 2012, a couple of projects by several members of the MSFN.org community have been undergoing development to extend Windows 2000's core kernel functions allowing newer programs such as Windows Media Player 10, Windows Movie Maker 2.6 for Windows Vista, and even DirectX 9.0c June 2010 build to function. These projects include extended kernel and unofficial updates rollup respectfully. Extended kernel, which is similar to KernelEx for Windows 98/Me, installs updated system files that include added dependencies that newer programs require to function properly. Unofficial service pack 5.2 is also in development which is to include all Microsoft .NET framework packages, updates found in the unofficial updates rollup package, as well as the extended kernel package.